Kind of an enjoyable, undemanding political thriller in which Tommy Lee Jones is a hired assassin and Gene Hackman is an Army sergeant who tries to find him, while he himself is hunted by the police after being framed for a murder.
There are predictable elements in the plot. A car chase through the streets of Chicago, a bloody assassination in Germany, Russians who scowl and look like albino prunes, Nazi thugs, bullets through the forehead, a sniper with a very professional looking rifle, a patsy, a vast right-wing conspiracy involving the Army, the Chicago police, and some independent agents.
Actually, the plot lost me here and there. (Why did Jones have to be smuggled into the USA under a false identity?) But it doesn't matter. Things roll right along, with fine location shooting in a bleak Chicago winter. Those snowy windy deserted alleys will freeze your eyeballs for you.
Hackman has never damaged a film he's been in. Tommy Lee Jones is unique in his delivery. Joanna Cassidy has a face full of character. Hardy Kruger looks just as he did 30 years ago. What happened to his career? He's hardly on screen here, and is only given two lines, one of them in Russian. And he was so good in "Sundays and Cybele." Dennis Franz contributes an authentic Chicago accent, which somehow manages to transmogrify the word "car" into "care". All of which is to say the acting is quite good.
It's a relatively realistic movie too. Nobody performs superhero stunts. Hackman is the hero and yet is flawed enough to get beaned over the head and, later, captured. Nobody leaps tall buildings in a single bound. There are no exploding fireballs or heads. The narrative is straightforward and unadorned by slow-motion deaths or fancy photography. The director has shown a bit of taste.
If you're not in the mood to have your thought provoked or your emotions gripped, this is a good movie to watch, as you while away your time.
There are predictable elements in the plot. A car chase through the streets of Chicago, a bloody assassination in Germany, Russians who scowl and look like albino prunes, Nazi thugs, bullets through the forehead, a sniper with a very professional looking rifle, a patsy, a vast right-wing conspiracy involving the Army, the Chicago police, and some independent agents.
Actually, the plot lost me here and there. (Why did Jones have to be smuggled into the USA under a false identity?) But it doesn't matter. Things roll right along, with fine location shooting in a bleak Chicago winter. Those snowy windy deserted alleys will freeze your eyeballs for you.
Hackman has never damaged a film he's been in. Tommy Lee Jones is unique in his delivery. Joanna Cassidy has a face full of character. Hardy Kruger looks just as he did 30 years ago. What happened to his career? He's hardly on screen here, and is only given two lines, one of them in Russian. And he was so good in "Sundays and Cybele." Dennis Franz contributes an authentic Chicago accent, which somehow manages to transmogrify the word "car" into "care". All of which is to say the acting is quite good.
It's a relatively realistic movie too. Nobody performs superhero stunts. Hackman is the hero and yet is flawed enough to get beaned over the head and, later, captured. Nobody leaps tall buildings in a single bound. There are no exploding fireballs or heads. The narrative is straightforward and unadorned by slow-motion deaths or fancy photography. The director has shown a bit of taste.
If you're not in the mood to have your thought provoked or your emotions gripped, this is a good movie to watch, as you while away your time.